"Honor or no honor," says Luttrell, fiercely, "I will see it out with her now."

Drawing a deep breath, he folds his arms and leans against the window, full of an agonized determination to know the worst.

Molly has put up her hand and laid it on Philip's chest, as though expostulating, but makes no vehement effort to escape from his embrace. Philip, his face lit up with passionate admiration, is gazing down into the lovely one so near him, that scarcely seems to shrink from his open homage. The merciless, cruel moon, betrays them all too surely.

Luttrell's pulses are throbbing wildly, while his heart has almost ceased to beat. Half a minute—that is a long hour—passes thus; a few more words from Philip, an answer from Molly. Oh, that he could hear! And then Shadwell stoops until, from where Luttrell stands, his face seems to grow to hers.

Tedcastle's teeth meet in his lip as he gazes spell-bound. A cold shiver runs through him, as when one learns that all one's dearest, most cherished hopes are trampled in the dust. A faint moisture stands on his brow. It is the bitterness of death!

Presently a drop of blood trickling slowly down—the sickly flavor of it in his mouth—rouses him. Instinctively he closes his eyes, as though too late to strive to shut out the torturing sight, and, with a deep curse, he presses his handkerchief to his lips and moves away as one suddenly awakened from a ghastly dream.

In the doorway he meets Marcia; she, too, has been a witness of the garden scene, and as he passes her she glances up at him with a curious smile.

"If you wish to keep her you should look after her," she whispers, with white lips.

"If she needs looking after, I do not wish for her," he answers, bitterly, and the next moment could kill himself, in that he has been so far wanting in loyalty to his most disloyal love.

With his mind quite made up, he waits through two dances silently, almost motionless, with his back against a friendly wall, hardly taking note of anything that is going on around him, until such time as he can claim another dance from Molly.

It comes at last: and, making his way through the throng of dancers, he reaches the spot where, breathless, smiling, she sits fanning herself, an adoring partner dropping little honeyed phrases into her willing ear.

"This is our dance," Luttrell says, in a hard tone, standing before her, with compressed lips and a pale face.

"Is it?" with a glance at her card.

"Never mind your card. I know it is ours," he says, and, offering her his arm, leads her, not to the ball-room, but on to a balcony, from which the garden can be reached by means of steps.

Before descending he says,—always in the same uncompromising tone:

"Are you cold? Shall I fetch you a shawl?"

And she answers:

"No, thank you. I think the night warm," being, for the moment, carried away by the strangeness and determination of his manner.

When they are in the garden, and still he has not spoken, she breaks the silence.

"What is it, Teddy?" she asks, lightly. "I am all curiosity. I never before saw you look so angry."

"'Angry'?—no,—I hardly think there is room for anger. I have brought you here to tell you—I will not keep to my engagement with you—an hour longer."

Silence follows this declaration,—a dead silence, broken only by the voices of the night and the faint, sweet, dreamy sound of one of Gungl's waltzes as it steals through the air to where they stand.

They have ceased to move, and are facing each other in the narrow pathway. A few beams from the illumined house fall across their feet; one, more adventurous than the rest, has lit on Molly's face, and lingers there, regardless of the envious moonbeams.

How changed it is! All the soft sweetness, the gladness of it, that characterized it a moment since, is gone. All the girlish happiness and excitement of a first ball have vanished. She is cold, rigid, as one turned to stone. Indignation lies within her lovely eyes.

"I admit you have taken me by surprise," she says, slowly. "It is customary—is it not?—for the one who breaks an engagement to assign some reason for so doing?"

"It is. You shall have my reason. Half an hour ago I stood at that window,"—pointing to it,—"and saw you in the shrubberies—with—Shadwell!"

"Yes? And then?"

"Then—then!" With a movement full of passion he lays his hands upon her shoulders and turns her slightly, so that the ray which has wandered once more rests upon her face. "Let me look at you," he says; "let me see how bravely you can carry out your deception to its end. Its end, mark you; for you shall never again deceive me. I have had enough of it. It is over. My love for you has died."

"Beyond all doubt it had an easy death," replies she, calmly. "There could never have been much life in it. But all this is beside the question. I have yet to learn my crime. I have yet to learn what awful iniquity lies in the fact of my being with Philip Shadwell."

"You are wonderfully innocent," with a sneer. "Do you think then that my sight failed me?"

"Still I do not understand," she says, drawing herself up, with a little proud gesture. "What is it to me whether you or all the world saw me with Philip? Explain yourself."

"I will." In a low voice, almost choked with passion and despair. "You will understand when I tell you I saw him with his arms around you—you submitting—you—— And then—I saw him—kiss you. That I should live to say it of you!"

"Did you see him kiss me?" still calmly. "Your eyesight is invaluable."

"Ah! you no longer deny it? In your inmost heart no doubt you are laughing at me, poor fool that I have been. How many other times have you kissed him, I wonder, when I was not by to see?"

"Whatever faults you may have had, I acquitted you of brutality," says she, in a low, carefully suppressed tone.

"You never loved me. In that one matter at least you were honest; you never professed affection. And yet I was mad enough to think that after a time I should gain the love of a flirt,—a coquette."

"You were mad to care for the love of 'a flirt,—a coquette.'"

"I have been blind all these past weeks," goes on he, unheeding, "determined not to see (what all the rest of the world, no doubt, too plainly saw) what there was between you and Shadwell. But I am blind no longer. I am glad,—yes, thankful," cries the young man, throwing out one hand, as though desirous of proving by action the truth of his sad falsehood,—"thankful I have found you out at last,—before it was too late."

"I am thankful too; but for another reason. I feel grateful that your suspicions have caused you to break off our engagement. And now that it is broken,—irremediably so,—let me tell you that for once your priceless sight has played you false. I admit that Philip placed his arm around me (but not unrebuked, as you would have it); I admit he stooped to kiss me; but," cries Molly, with sudden passion that leaves her pale as an early snow-drop, "I do not admit he kissed me. Deceitful, worthless, flirt, coquette, as you think me, I have not yet fallen so low as to let one man kiss me while professing to keep faith with another."

"You say this—after——"

"I do. And who is there shall dare give me the lie? Beware, Tedcastle; you have gone far enough already. Do not go too far. You have chosen to insult me. Be it so. I forgive you. But, for the future, let me see, and hear, and know as little of you as may be possible."

"Molly, if what you now——"

"Stand back, sir," cries she, with an air of majesty and with an imperious gesture, raising one white arm, that gleams like snow in the dark night, to wave him to one side.

"From henceforth remember, I am deaf when you address me!"

She sweeps past him into the house, without further glance or word, leaving him, half mad with doubt and self-reproach, to pace the gardens until far into the morning.

When he does re-enter the ball-room he finds it almost deserted. Nearly all the guests have taken their departure. Dancing is growing half-hearted; conversation is having greater sway with those that still remain.

The first person he sees—with Philip beside her—is Molly, radiant, sparkling, even more than usually gay. Two crimson spots burn upon either cheek, making her large eyes seem larger, and bright as gleaming stars.

Even as Luttrell, with concentrated bitterness, stands transfixed at some little distance from her, realizing how small a thing to her is this rupture between them, that is threatening to break his heart, she, looking up, sees him.

Turning to her companion, she whispers something to him in a low tone, and then she laughs,—a soft, rippling laugh, full of mirth and music.

"There go the chimes again," says Mr. Potts, who has just come up, alluding to Molly's little cruel outburst of merriment. "I never saw Miss Massereene in such good form as she is in to-night. Oh!"—with a suppressed yawn—"'what a day we're 'aving!' I wish it were all to come over again."

"Plantagenet, you grow daily more dissipated," says Cecil Stafford, severely. "A little boy like you should be in your bed hours ago; instead of which you have been allowed to sit up until half-past four, and——"

"And still I am not 'appy?' How could I be when you did me out of that solitary dance you promised me? I really believed, when I asked you with such pathos in the early part of the evening to keep that one green spot in your memory for me, you would have done so."

"Did I forget you?" remorsefully. "Well, don't blame me. Mr. Lowry would keep my card for me, and, as a natural consequence, it was lost. After that, how was it possible for me to keep to my engagements?"

"I think it was a delightful ball," Molly says, with perhaps a shade too much empressement. "I never in all my life enjoyed myself so well."

"Lucky you," says Cecil. "Had I been allowed I should perhaps have been happy too; but"—with a glance at Stafford, who is looking the very personification of languid indifference—"when people allow their tempers to get the better of them——" Here she pauses with an eloquent sigh.

"I hope you are not alluding to me," says Lowry, who is at her elbow, with a smile that awakes in Stafford a mild longing to strangle him.

"Oh, no!"—sweetly. "How could you think it? I am not ungrateful; and I know how carefully you tried to make my evening a pleasant one."

"If I succeeded it is more than I dare hope for," returns he, in a low tone, intended for her ears alone.

She smiles at him, and holds out her arm, that he may refasten the eighth button of her glove that has mysteriously come undone. He rather lingers over the doing of it. He is, indeed, strangely awkward, and finds an unaccountable difficulty in inducing the refractory button to go into its proper place.

"Shall we bivouac here for the remainder of the night, or seek our beds?" asks Sir Penthony, impatiently. "I honestly confess the charms of that eldest Miss Millbanks have completely used me up. Too much of a good thing is good for nothing; and she is tall. Do none of the rest of you feel fatigue? I know women's passion for conquest is not easily satiated,"—with a slight sneer—"but at five o'clock in the morning one might surely call a truce."

They agree with him, and separate, even the tardiest guest having disappeared by this time, with a last assurance of how intensely they have enjoyed their evening; though when they reach their chambers a few of them give way to such despair and disappointment as rather gives the lie to their expressions of pleasure.

Poor Molly, in spite of her false gayety,—put on to mask the wounded pride, the new sensation of blankness that fills her with dismay,—flings herself upon her bed and cries away all the remaining hours that rest between her and her maid's morning visit.

"Alas! how easily things go wrong: A sigh too much or a kiss too long."

For how much less—for the mere suspicion of a kiss—have things gone wrong with her? How meagre is the harvest she has gathered in from all her anticipated pleasure, how poor a fruition has been hers!

Now that she and her lover are irrevocably separated, she remembers, with many pangs of self-reproach, how tender and true and honest he has proved himself in all his dealings with her; and, though she cannot accuse herself of actual active disloyalty toward him, a hidden voice reminds her how lightly and with what persistent carelessness she accepted all his love, and how indifferently she made return.

With the desire to ease the heartache she is enduring, she tries—in vain—to encourage a wrathful feeling toward him, calling to mind how ready he was to believe her false, how easily he flung her off, for what, after all, was but a fancied offense. But the very agony of his face as he did so disarms her, recollecting as she does every change and all the passionate disappointment of it.

Oh that she had repulsed Philip on the instant when first he took her hand, as it had been in her heart to do!—but for the misery he showed that for the moment softened her. Mercy on such occasions is only cruel kindness, so she now thinks,—and has been her own undoing. And besides, what is his misery to hers?

An intense bitterness, a positive hatred toward Shadwell, who has brought all this discord into her hitherto happy life, grows within her, filling her with a most unjust longing to see him as wretched as he has unwittingly made her; while yet she shrinks with ever-increasing reluctance from the thought that soon she must bring herself to look again upon his dark but handsome face.

Luttrell, too,—she must meet him; and, with such swollen eyes and pallid cheeks, the bare idea brings a little color into her white face.

As eight o'clock strikes, she rises languidly from her bed, dressed as she is, disrobing hurriedly, lest even her woman should guess how wakeful she had been, throws open her window, and lets the pure cold air beat upon her features.

But when Sarah comes she is not deceived. So distressed is she at her young mistress's appearance that she almost weeps aloud, and gives it as her opinion that balls and all such nocturnal entertainments are the invention of the enemy.



CHAPTER XXV.

"Ah, starry hope, that didst arise But to be overcast!"

—Edgar A. Poe.

"The ring asunder broke."

—German Song.

At breakfast Molly is very pale, and speaks little. She toys with her toast, but cannot eat. Being questioned, she confesses herself fatigued, not being accustomed to late hours.

She neither looks at Luttrell, nor does he seek to attract her attention in any way.

"A good long walk will refresh you more than anything," says Talbot Lowry, who has been spending the past few days at Herst. He addresses Molly, but his eyes seek Cecil's as he does so, in the fond hope that she will take his hint and come with him for a similar refresher to that he has prescribed for Molly.

Cecil's unfortunate encouragement of the night before—displayed more with a view to chagrining Sir Penthony than from a mere leaning toward coquetry—has fanned his passion to a very dangerous height. He is consumed with a desire to speak, and madly flatters himself that there is undoubted hope for him.

To throw himself at Lady Stafford's feet, declare his love, and ask her to leave, for him, a husband who has never been more to her than an ordinary acquaintance, and to renounce a name that can have no charms for her, being devoid of tender recollections or sacred memories, seems to him, in his present over-strained condition, a very light thing indeed. In return, he argues feverishly, he can give her the entire devotion of a heart, and, what is perhaps a more practical offer, a larger income than she can now command.

Then, in the present day, what so easily, or quietly, or satisfactorily arranged, as a divorce in high life, leaving behind it neither spot nor scar, nor anything unpleasant in the way of social ostracism? And this might—nay, should—follow.

Like Molly, he has lain awake since early dawn arranging plans and rehearsing speeches; and now, after breakfast, as he walks beside the object of his adoration through the shrubberies and outer walks into the gardens beyond, carried away by the innate vanity of him, and his foolish self-esteem, and not dreaming of defeat, he decides that the time has come to give voice to his folly.

They are out of view of the windows, when he stops abruptly, and says rashly,—with a pale face, it is true, but a certain amount of composure that bespeaks confidence,—"Cecil, I can keep silence no longer. Let me speak to you, and tell you all that is in my heart."

"He has fallen in love with Molly," thinks Cecil, wondering vaguely at the manner of his address, he having never attempted to call her by her Christian name before.

"You are in love?" she says, kindly, but rather uncertainly, not being able at the moment to call to mind any tender glances of his cast at Molly or any suspicious situations that might confirm her in her fancy.

"Need you ask?" says Lowry, taking her hand, feeling still further emboldened by the gentleness with which she has received his first advance. "Have not all these months—nay, this year past—taught you so much?"

"'This year past?'" Cecil repeats, honestly at sea, and too much surprised by the heat of his manner to grasp at once the real meaning of his words. Though I think a second later a faint inkling of it comes to her, because she releases her hand quickly from his clasp, and her voice takes a sharper tone. "I do not understand you," she says, "Take care you understand—yourself."

But the warning comes too late. Lowry, bent on his own destruction, goes on vehemently:

"I do—too well. Have I not had time to learn it?" he says, passionately. "Have I not spent every day, every hour, in thoughts of you? Have I not lived in anticipation of our meeting? While you, Cecil, surely you, too, were glad when we were together. The best year I have ever known has been this last, in which I have grown to love you."

"Pray cease," says Cecil, hurriedly, stepping back and raising her hand imperiously. "What can you mean? You must be out of your senses to speak to me like this."

Although angry, she is calm, and, indeed, scarcely cares to give way to indignation before Lowry, whom she has always looked upon with great kindness and rather in the light of a boy. She is a little sorry for him, too, that he should have chosen to make a fool of himself with her, who, she cannot help feeling, is his best friend. For to all the moodiness and oddity of his nature she has been singularly lenient, bearing with him when others would have lost all patience. And this is her reward. For a full minute Lowry seems confounded. Then, "I must indeed be bereft of reason," he says, in a low, intense voice, "if I am to believe that you can receive like this the assurance of my love. It cannot be altogether such a matter of wonder—my infatuation for you—as you would have me think, considering how you"—in a rather choked tone—"led me on."

"'Led you on'! My dear Mr. Lowry, how can you talk so foolishly? I certainly thought I knew you very well, and"—docketing off each item on her fingers—"I let you run my messages now and then; and I danced with you; and you sent me the loveliest flowers in London or out of it; and you were extremely kind to me on all occasions; but then so many other men were kind also, that really beyond the flowers,"—going back to her second finger,—"(which were incomparably finer than those I ever received from any one else), I don't see that you were more to me than the others."

"Will you not listen to me? Will you not even let me plead my cause?"

"Certainly not, considering what a cause it is. You must be mad."

"You are cold as ice," says he, losing his head. "No other woman but yourself would consent to live as you do. A wife, and yet no wife!"

"Mr. Lowry," says Lady Stafford, with much dignity but perfect temper, "you forget yourself. I must really beg you not to discuss my private affairs. The life I lead might not suit you or any single one of your acquaintance, but it suits me, and that is everything. You say I am 'cold,' and you are right: I am. I fancied (wrongly) my acknowledged coldness would have prevented such a scene as I have been forced to listen to, by you, to-day. You are the first who has ever dared to insult me. You are, indeed, the first man who has ever been at my feet, metaphorically speaking or otherwise; and I sincerely trust," says Lady Stafford, with profound earnestness, "you may be the last, for anything more unpleasant I never experienced."

"Have you no pity for me?" cries he, passionately. "Why need you scorn my love? Every word you utter tears my heart, and you,—you care no more than if I were a dog! Have you no feeling? Do you never wish to be as other women are, beloved and loving, instead of being as now——"

"Again, sir, I must ask you to allow my private life to be private," says Cecil, still with admirable temper, although her color has faded a good deal, and the fingers of one hand have closed convulsively upon a fold of her dress. "I may, perhaps, pity you, but I can feel nothing but contempt for the love you offer, that would lower the thing it loves!"

"Not lower it," says he, quickly, grasping eagerly at what he vainly hopes is a last chance. "Under the circumstances a divorce could be easily obtained. If you would trust yourself to me there should be no delay. You might easily break this marriage-tie that can scarcely be considered binding."

"And supposing—I do not wish to break it? How then? But enough of this. I cannot listen any longer. I have heard too much already. I must really ask you to leave me. Go."

"Is this how your friendships end?" asks he, bitterly. "Will you deny I was even so much to you?"

"Certainly not. Though I must add that had I known my friendship with you would have put me in the way of receiving so much insult as I have received to-day, you should never have been placed upon my list. Let me pray you to go away now, to leave Herst entirely for the present, because it would be out of the question my seeing you again,—at least until time has convinced you of your folly. You are an old friend, Talbot, and I would willingly try and forget all that has happened to-day, or at all events to remember it only as a passing madness."

"Am I a boy, a fool, that you speak to me like this?" cries he, catching her hand to detain her as she moves away. "And why do you talk of 'insult'? I only urge you to exchange indifference for love,—the indifference of a husband who cares no more for you than for the gravel at your feet."

"And pray, sir, by what rule do you measure the amount of my regard for Lady Stafford?" exclaims Sir Penthony, walking through an open space in the privet hedge that skirts this corner of the garden, where he has been spell-bound for the last two minutes. A short time, no doubt, though a great deal can be said in it.

He is positively livid, and has his eyes fixed, not on his enemy, but on his wife.

Lowry changes color, but gives way not an inch; he also tightens his grasp on Cecil's unwilling hand, and throws up his head defiantly.

"Let my wife's hand go directly," says Stafford, in a low but furious tone, advancing.

By a quick movement Cecil wrenches herself free and gets between the two men. She does not fling herself, she simply gets there, almost—as it seems—without moving.

"Not another word, Sir Penthony," she says, quietly. "I forbid it. I will have no scene. Mr. Lowry has behaved foolishly, but I desire that nothing more be said about it. Go,"—turning to Lowry, who is frowning ominously, and pointing imperiously to a distant gate,—"and do as I asked you a few moments since,—leave Herst without delay."

So strong is her determination to avoid an esclandre, and so masterly is her manner of carrying out her will, that both men instinctively obey her. Sir Penthony lowers his eyes and shifts his aggressive position; Lowry, with bent head, and without another word, walks away from her down the garden-path out of the gate, and disappears—for years.

When he has quite gone, Sir Penthony turns to her.

"Is this the way you amuse yourself?" he asks, in a compressed voice.

"Do not reproach me," murmurs she, hurriedly; "I could not bear it now." She speaks clearly, but her tone has lost its firmness, because of the little tremor that runs through it, while her face is white as one of the pale blossoms she holds within her hand. "Besides, it is not deserved. Were you long here before you spoke?"

"Long enough." With a world of meaning in his tone.

"Then you heard my exculpation. 'Cold as ice,' he called me. And he was right. As I am to you, Sir Penthony, so am I to all men. No one yet has touched my heart."

"For myself I can answer," replies he, bitterly; "but for the others——"

"Not another word," she breaks in, vehemently. "Do not say—do not even hint at—what I might find it impossible to forgive. Not even to you will I seek to justify myself on such a point. And you," she says, tears of agitation arising from all she has undergone, mingled with much pent-up wounded feeling, coming thickly into her eyes, "you should be the last to blame me for what has happened, when you remember who it was placed me in such a false position as makes men think they may say to me what they choose."

"You are unjust," he answers, nearly as white as herself. "I only followed out your wishes. It was your own arrangement; I but acceded to it."

"You should not have done so," cries she, with subdued excitement. "You were a man of the world, capable of judging; I was a foolish girl, ignorant of the consequences that must follow on such an act. Our marriage was a wretched mistake."

"Cecil, you know you can escape from your false position as soon as you choose. No one loves you as I do."

"Impossible." Coldly. "In this world a thing once done can never be undone. Have you lived so long without learning that lesson?"

As she speaks she turns from him, and, walking quickly away, leaves him alone in the garden. Much as he has grown to love her, never until now has the very tenderness of affection touched him,—now, when the laughter-loving Cecil has changed for him into the feeling, accusing woman; although a woman dead to him, with a heart locked carefully, lest he should enter it.

How can he tell, as she goes so proudly along the garden-path, that her bosom is heaving with shame and unconfessed longing, and that down her cheeks—so prone to dimple with joyous laughter—the bitter tears are falling?

Almost as she reaches the house she encounters Tedcastle, and turns hastily aside, lest he should mark the traces of her recent weeping. But so bent is he on his own dismal thoughts that he heeds her not, but follows aimlessly the path before him that leads to the balcony from, which the smaller drawing-room may be reached.

He is depressed and anxious, the night's vigil having induced him to believe himself somewhat hasty in his condemnation of Molly. As he gains the boudoir he starts, for there in the room, with the light flashing warmly upon her, stands Molly Bawn alone.

She is dressed in a long trailing gown of black velveteen,—an inexpensive dress, but one that suits her admirably, with its slight adornment of little soft lace frillings at the throat and wrists. Pausing irresolutely, Luttrell makes as though he would retrace his steps.

"Do not go," says Molly's voice, clear and firm. "As you are here, I wish to speak to you."

She beckons him to come a little nearer to her, and silently he obeys the gesture. There is a small round table between them, upon which Molly is leaning rather heavily. As he approaches, however, and waits, gazing curiously at her for her next word, she straightens herself and compels her eyes to meet his.

"Here is your ring," she says, drawing the glittering treasure from her finger and placing it before him.

There is not the extremest trace of excitement or feeling of any kind in her tone. Luttrell, on the contrary, shrinks as though touched by fire.

"Keep it," he says, involuntarily, coloring darkly.

"No—no."

"Why?" he urges. "It will not hurt you, and"—with a quickly-suppressed sigh—"it may perhaps compel you to think of me now and then."

"I have neither wish nor desire ever to think of you again," returns she, still in the same cold, even tone, pushing the ring still closer to him with her first finger. There is something of contempt in the action. A ray from the dancing sun outside falls through the glass on to the diamonds, making them flash and sparkle in their gold setting.

"That admits of no answer," says Luttrell, with low but passionate bitterness; and, taking up the ring, he flings it lightly into the very heart of the glowing fire.

With a sudden loss of self-restraint Molly makes a movement forward as though to prevent him; but too late,—already the greedy flames have closed upon it.

Not all the agitation, not all his angry words of the night before, have affected her so keenly as this last act. She bursts into a very storm of tears.

"Oh! what have you done?" cries she. "You have destroyed it; you have burned it,—my pretty ring!"

She clasps her hands together, and gazes with straining eyes into the cruel fire. Something within her heart feels broken. Surely some string has snapped. The ring, in spite of all, was a last link between them; and now, too, it has gone.

"Molly!" says he, taking a step toward her, and holding out his hands, softened, vanquished by her tears, ready to throw himself once more an abject slave at her feet.

"Do not speak to me," returns she, still sobbing bitterly. "Have you not done enough? I wish you would leave me to myself. Go away. There is nothing more that you can do."

Feeling abashed, he scarcely knows why, he silently quits the room.

Then down upon her knees before the fire falls Molly, and with the poker strives with all her might to discover some traces of her lost treasure. So diligent is her search that after a little while the ring, blackened, disfigured, altered almost beyond recognition, lies within her hand. Still it is her ring, however changed, and some small ray of comfort gladdens her heart.

She is still, however, weeping bitterly, and examining sadly the precious relic she has rescued from utter oblivion, and from which the diamond, soiled, but still brilliant, has fallen into her palm, when Philip enters.

"Molly, what has happened?" he asks, advancing toward her, shocked at her appearance, which evinces all the deepest signs of woe. "What has distressed you?"

"You have," cries she, with sudden vehement passion, all her sorrow and anger growing into quick life as she sees him. "You are the cause of all my misery. Why do you come near me? You might, at least, have grace enough to spare me the pain of seeing you."

"I do not understand," he says, his face very pale. "In how have I offended,—I, who would rather be dead than cause you any unhappiness? Tell me how I have been so unfortunate."

"I hate you," she says, with almost childish cruelty, sobbing afresh. "I wish you had died before I came to this place. You have come between me and the only man I love. Yes,"—smiting her hands together in a very agony of sorrow,—"he may doubt it if he will, but I do love him; and now we are separated forever. Even my ring"—with a sad glance at it—"is broken, and so is—my heart."

"You are alluding to—Luttrell?" asks he,—his earliest suspicions at last confirmed,—speaking with difficulty, so dry his lips have grown.

"I am."

"And how have I interfered between you and—him?"

"Why did you speak to me of love again last night," retorts she, "when you must know how detestable a subject it is to me? He saw you put your arm around me; he saw—ah! why did I not tell you then the truth (from which through a mistaken feeling of pity I refrained), that your mere touch sickened me? Then you stooped, and he thought—you know what he thought—and yet," cries Molly, with a gesture of aversion, "how could he have thought it possible that I should allow you of all men to—kiss me?"

"Why speak of what I so well know?" interrupts he hoarsely, with bent head and averted eyes. "You seldom spare me. You are angered, and for what? Because you still hanker after a man who flung you away,—you, for whose slightest wish I would risk my all. For a mere chimera, a fancy, a fear only half developed, he renounced you."

"Say nothing more," says Molly, with pale lips and eyes large and dark through regretful sorrow; "not another word. I think he acted rightly. He thought I was false, and so thinking he was right to renounce. I do not say this in his defense or because—or for any reason only——" She pauses.

"Why not continue? Because you—love him still."

"Well, and why not?" says Molly. "Why should I deny my love for him? Can any shame be connected with it? Yes," murmurs she, her sweet eyes filling with tears, her small clasped hands trembling, "though he and I can never be more to each other than we now are, I tell you I love him as I never have and never shall love again."

"It is a pity that such love as yours should have no better return," says he, with an unlovely laugh. "Luttrell appears to bear his fate with admirable equanimity."

"You are incapable of judging such a nature as his," returns she, disdainfully. "He is all that is gentle, and true, and noble: while you——" She stops abruptly, causing a pause that is more eloquent than words, and, with a distant bow, hurries from the room.

Philip's star to-day is not in the ascendant. Even as he stands crushed by Molly's bitter reproaches, Marcia, with her heart full of a settled revenge toward him, is waiting outside her grandfather's door for permission to enter.

That unlucky shadow of a kiss last night has done as much mischief as half a dozen real kisses. It has convinced Marcia of the truth of that which for weeks she has been vainly struggling to disbelieve, namely, Philip's mad infatuation for Molly.

Now all doubt is at an end, and in its place has fallen a despair more terrible than any uncertainty.

All the anguish of a heart rejected, that is still compelled to live on loving its rejector, has been hers for the past two months, and it has told upon her slowly but surely. She is strangely altered. Dark hollows lay beneath her eyes, that have grown almost unearthly in expression, so large are they, and so sombre is the fire that burns within them. There is a compression about the lips that has grown habitual; small lines mar the whiteness of her forehead, while among her raven tresses, did any one mark them closely enough, fine threads of silver may be traced.

Pacing up and down her room the night before, with widely-opened eyes, gazing upon the solemn blackness that surrounds her, all the wrongs and slights she has endured come to her with startling distinctness. No sense of weariness, no thought of a necessity for sleep, disturbs her reverie or breaks in upon the monotonous misery of her musings. She is past all that. Already her death has come to her,—a death to her hope, and joy, and peace,—even to that poor calm that goes so far to deceive the outer world.

Oh, the cold, quiet night, when speech is not and sleep has forgotten us! when all the doubts and fears and jealousies that in the blessed daylight slumber, rise up to torture us when even the half-suspected sneer, the covert neglect, that some hours ago were but as faintest pin-pricks, now gall and madden as a poisoned thrust!

A wild thirst for revenge grows within her breast as one by one she calls to mind all the many injuries she has received. Strangely enough,—and unlike a woman,—her anger is concentrated on Philip, rather than on the one he loves, instinct telling her he is not beloved in return.

She broods upon her wrongs until, as the first bright streak of yellow day illumes the room, flinging its glories profusely upon the wall and ceiling, pretty knickknacks that return its greeting, and angry, unthankful creature alike, a thought comes to her that promises to amply satisfy her vengeful craving. As she ponders on it a curious light breaks upon her face, a smile half triumph, half despair.

* * * * *

Now, standing before her grandfather's room, with a folded letter crushed within her palm, and a heart that beats almost to suffocation, she hears him bid her enter.

Fatigued by the unusual exertions of a ball, Mr. Amherst is seated at his table in a lounging-chair, clad in his dressing-gown, and looking older, feebler, than is his wont.

He merely glances at his visitor as she approaches, without comment of any description.

"I have had something on my mind for some time, grandpapa," begins Marcia, who is pale and worn, through agitation and the effects of a long and hopeless vigil. "I think it only right to let you know. I have suppressed it all this time, because I feared distressing you; but now—now—will you read this?"

She hands him, as she speaks, the letter received by Philip two months before relative to his unlucky dealings with some London Jews.

In silence Mr. Amherst reads it, in silence re-reads it, and finally, folding it up again, places it within his desk.

"You and Philip have quarreled?" he says, presently, in a quiet tone.

"No, there has been no quarrel."

"Your engagement is at an end?"

"Yes."

"And is this the result of last night's vaunted pleasures?" asks he, keenly. "Have you snatched only pain and a sense of failure from its fleeting hours? And Eleanor, too,—she was pale at luncheon, and for once silent,—has she too found her coveted fruit rotten at its core? It is the universal law," says the old man, grimly, consoling himself with a pinch of snuff, taken with much deliberation from an exquisite Louis Quinze box that rests at his elbow, and leaning back languidly in his chair. "Life is made up of hopes false as the ignis-fatuus. When with the greatest sense of security and promise of enjoyment we raise and seek to drain the cup of pleasure, while yet we gaze with longing eyes upon its sparkling bubbles, and, stooping thirstily, suffer our expectant lips at length to touch it, lo! it is then, just as we have attained to the summit of our bliss, we find our sweetest draught has turned to ashes in our mouth."

He stops and drums softly on the table for a moment or two, while Marcia stands before him silently pondering.

"So Philip is already counting on my death," he goes on, meditatively, still softly tapping the table. "How securely he rests in the belief of his succession! His father's son could scarcely fail to be a spendthrift, and I will have—no—prodigal at Herst—to hew—and cut—and scatter. A goodly heritage, truly, as Buscarlet called it. Be satisfied, Marcia: your revenge is complete. Philip shall not inherit Herst."

"I do not seek revenge," says Marcia, unsteadily, now her wish is fulfilled and Philip hopelessly crushed, a cold, troubled faintness creeping round her heart. An awful sense of despair, a fruitless longing to recall her action, makes her tremble. "Only I could not bear to see you longer deceived,—you, after all the care—the trouble—you bestowed upon him. My conscience compelled me to tell you all."

"And you, Marcia,"—with an odd smile she is puzzled to explain,—"you have never deceived me, have you? All your pretty speeches and tender cares have been quite sincere?"

"Dear grandpapa, yes."

"You have not wished me dead, or spoken or thought evilly of the old tyrant at Herst, who has so often crossed and thwarted you?"

"Never, dear: how could I—when I remember——"

"Ay, quite so. When one remembers! And gratitude is so common a thing. Will you oblige me by sending a line to Mr. Buscarlet, asking him to come to me without delay?"

"You are going to alter your will?" she asks, faintly, shocked at the speedy success of her scheme.

"Yes," coolly. "I am going to cut Philip out of it."

"Grandpapa, do not be too hard on him," she says, putting her hand across her throat, and almost gasping. "He is young. Young men sometimes——"

"I was once a young man myself, you seem to forget, and I know all about it. Why did you give me that letter?" he asks, grimly. "Are you chicken-hearted, now you have done the deed, like all women? It is too late for remorse to be of use: you have done it. Let it be your portion to remember how you have willfully ruined his prospects."

A choking sigh escapes her as she quits the room. Truly she has bought her revenge dearly. Not the poorest trace of sweetness lingers in it.

* * * * *

By this time it will be perceived that the house is in a secret turmoil. Every one is at daggers drawn with every one else. Molly and Lady Stafford have as yet exchanged no confidences, though keenly desirous of doing so, each having noticed with the liveliest surmisings the depression of the other.

Mr. Potts alone, who is above suspicion (being one of those cheerful people who never see anything—no matter how closely under their noses—until it is brought before them in the broadest language), continues blissfully unconscious of the confusion that reigns around, and savors his conversation throughout the evening with as many embarrassing remarks as he can conveniently put in.

"Eaten bread is soon forgotten," says he, sententiously, during a pause. "You all seem strangely oblivious of the fact that last night there was a ball in this house. Why shirk the subject? I like talking," says Mr. Potts, superfluously, "and surely you must all have something to communicate concerning it. Thanks to our own exertions, I think it was as good a one as ever I was at; and the old boy"—(I need scarcely say Mr. Amherst has retired to rest)—was uncommon decent about giving us the best champagne."

"You took very good care to show him how you appreciated his hospitality," says Sir Penthony, mildly.

"Well, why shouldn't I do honor to the occasion? A ball at Herst don't come every day. As a rule, an affair of the kind at a country house is a failure, as the guests quarrel dreadfully among themselves next day; but ours has been a brilliant exception."

"Brilliant indeed," says Lady Stafford, demurely.

"But what became of Lowry?" demands this wretched young man, who has never yet learned that silence is golden. "He told me this morning he intended staying on until the end of the week, and off he goes to London by the midday train without a word of warning. Must have heard some unpleasant news, I shouldn't wonder, he looked so awfully cut up. Did he tell you anything about it?" To Lady Stafford.

"No." In a freezing tone. "I see no reason why I, in particular, should be bored by Mr. Lowry's private woes."

"Well, you were such a friend, you know, for one thing," says Potts, surprised, but obtuse as ever.

"So I am of yours; but I sincerely trust the fact of my being so will not induce you to come weeping to me whenever you chance to lose your heart or place all your money on the wrong horse."

"Did he lose his money, then?"

"Plantagenet, dancing has muddled your brain. How should I know whether he lost his money or not? I am merely supposing. You are dull to-night. Come and play a game at ecarte with me, to see if it may rouse you."

They part for the night rather earlier than usual, pleading fatigue,—all except Mr. Potts, who declares himself fresh as a daisy, and proposes an impromptu dance in the ball-room. He is instantly snubbed, and retires gracefully, consoling himself with the reflection that he has evidently more "go" in his little finger than they can boast in their entire bodies.

Sir Penthony having refused to acknowledge his wife's parting salutation,—meant to conciliate,—Cecil retires to her room in a state of indignation and sorrow that reduces her presently to tears.

Her maid, entering just as she has reached the very highest pinnacle of her wrongs, meets with anything but a warm reception.

"How now, Trimmins? Did I ring?" asks she, with unwonted sharpness, being unpleasantly mindful of the redness of her eyes.

"No, my lady; but I thought——"

"Never think," says Cecil, interrupting her with unreasoning irritation.

"No, my lady. I only thought perhaps you would see Miss Massereene," persists Trimmins, meekly. "She wishes to know, with her love, if you can receive her now."

"Miss Massereene? Of course I can. Why did you not say so before?"

"Your ladyship scarcely gave me time," says Trimmins, demurely, taking an exhaustive survey of her cambric apron.

"True; I was hasty," Cecil acknowledges, in her impulsive, honest, haughty way. "Tell Miss Massereene I shall be delighted to see her at once."

Presently Molly enters, her eyelids pink, the corners of her mouth forlornly curved, a general despondency in her whole demeanor.

Cecil, scarcely more composed, advances to meet her.

"Why, Molly!" she says, pathetically.

"You have been crying," says Molly, in the same breath, throwing herself into her arms.

"I have indeed, my dear," confesses Cecil, in a lachrymose tone, and then she begins to cry again, and Molly follows suit, and for the next five minutes they have a very comfortable time of it together.

Then they open their hearts to each other and relate fluently, as only a woman can, all the intolerable wrongs and misjudgment they have undergone at the hands of their lovers.

"To accuse me of anything so horrible!" says Molly, indignantly. "Oh, Cecil! I don't believe he could care for me one bit and suspect me of it."

"'Care for you!' Nonsense, my dear! he adores you. That is precisely why he has made such a fool of himself. You know—

"Trifles light as air, Are to the jealous confirmations strong As proofs of holy writ.

"I like a man to be jealous,—in reason. Though when Sir Penthony walked out from behind that hedge, looking as if he could, with pleasure, devour me and Talbot at a bite, I confess I could gladly have dispensed with the quality in him. You should have seen his face: for once I was honestly frightened."

"Poor Cecil! it must have been a shock. And all because that tiresome young man wouldn't go away."

"Just so. All might have been well had he only seen things in a reasonable light. Oh, I was so angry! The most charming of your charms, Molly," says Cecil, warmly, "is your ability to sympathize with one. You can feel so thoroughly with and for me; and you never season your remarks with unpalatable truths. You never say, 'I told you so,' or 'I knew how it would be,' or 'didn't I warn you?' or anything else equally objectionable. I really would rather a person boxed my ears outright than give way to such phrases as those, pretending they know all about a catastrophe, after it has happened. And," says her ladyship, with a pensive sigh, "you might perhaps (had you so chosen) have accused me of flirting a leetle bit with that stupid Talbot."

"Well, indeed, perhaps I might, dear," says Molly, innocently.

"What, are you going to play the traitor after all that flattery? and if so, what am I to say to you about your disgraceful encouragement of Captain Shadwell?"

"I wonder if I did encourage him?" says Molly, contritely. "At first, perhaps unconsciously, but lately I am sure I didn't. Do you know, Cecil, I positively dislike him? he is so dark and silent, and still persistent. But when a man keeps on saying he is miserable for love of you, and that you are the cause of all his distress, and that he would as soon be dead as alive, because you cannot return his affection, how can one help feeling a little sorry for him?"

"I don't feel in the least sorry for Talbot. I thought him extremely unpleasant and impertinent, and I hope with all my heart he is very unhappy to-night, because it will do him good."

"Cecil, how cruel you are!"

"Well, by what right does he go about making fierce love to married women, compelling them to listen to his nonsense whether they like it or not, and getting them into scrapes? I don't break my heart over Sir Penthony, but I certainly do not wish him to think badly of me."

"At least," says Molly, relapsing again into the blues, "you have this consolation: you cannot lose Sir Penthony."

"That might also be looked on as a disadvantage. Still, I suppose there is some benefit to be gained from my position," says Cecil, meditatively. "My lover (if indeed he is my lover) cannot play the false knight with me; I defy him to love—and to ride away. There are no breakers ahead for me. He is mine irrevocably, no matter how horribly he may desire to escape. But you need not envy me; it is sweeter to be as you are,—to know him yours without the shadow of a tie. He is not lost to you."

"Effectually. What! do you think I would submit to be again engaged to a man who could fling me off for a chimera, a mere trick of the imagination? If he were to beg my pardon on his knees,—if he were to acknowledge every word he said to me a lie,—I would not look at him again."

"I always said your pride would be your bane," says Cecil, reprovingly. "Now, just think how far happier you would be if you were friends with him again, and think of nothing else. What is pride in comparison with comfort?"

"Have you forgiven Sir Penthony?"

"Freely. But he won't forgive me."

"Have you forgiven him the first great crime of all,—his indifference toward his bride?"

"N—o," confesses her ladyship, smiling; "not yet."

"Ah! then don't blame me. I could have killed myself when I cried," says Molly, referring again to the past, with a little angry shiver; "but I felt so sorry for my poor, pretty, innocent ring. And he looked so handsome, so determined, when he flung it in the fire, with his eyes quite dark and his figure drawn up; and—and—I could not help wondering," says Molly, with a little tremble in her tone, "who next would love him—and who—he—would love."

"I never thought you were so fond of him, dearest," says Cecil, laying her hand softly on her friend's.

"Nor I,—until I lost him," murmurs poor Molly, with a vain attempt at composure. Two tears fall heavily into her lap; a sob escapes her.

"Now you are going to cry again," interposes Cecil, with hasty but kindly warning. "Don't. He is not going to fall in love with any one so long as you are single, take my word for it. Nonsense, my dear! cheer yourself with the certainty that he is at this very moment eating his heart out, because he knows better than I do that, though there may be many women, there is only one Molly Bawn in the world."

This reflection, although consolatory, has not the desired effect. Instead of drying her eyes and declaring herself glad that Luttrell is unhappy, Molly grows more and more afflicted every moment.

"My dear girl," exclaims Lady Stafford, as a last resource, "do pray think of your complexion. I have finished crying; I shall give way to crying no more, because I wish to look my best to-morrow, to let him see what a charming person he has chosen to quarrel with. And my tears are not so destructive as yours, because mine arise from vexation, yours from feeling."

"I hardly know," says Molly, with an attempt at nonchalance she is far from feeling, "I really think I cried more for my diamond than for—my lover. However, I shall take your advice; I shall think no more about it. To-morrow"—rising and running to the glass, and pushing back her disordered hair from her face, that is lovely in spite of marring tears—"to-morrow I shall be gayer, brighter than he has ever yet seen me. What! shall I let him think I fret because of him! He saw me once in tears; he shall not see me so again."

"What a pity it is that grief should be so unbecoming!" says Cecil, laughing. "I always think what a guy Niobe must have been if she was indeed all tears."

"The worst thing about crying, I think," says Molly, "is the fatal desire one feels to blow one's nose: that is the horrid part of it. I knew I was looking odious all the time I was weeping over my ring, and that added to my discomfort. By the bye, Cecil, what were you doing at the table with a pencil just before we broke up to-night? Sir Penthony was staring at you fixedly all through,—wondering, I am sure, at your occupation, as, to tell the truth, was I."

"Nothing very remarkable. I was inditing a 'sonnet to your eyebrow,' or rather to your lids, they were so delicately tinted, and so much in unison with the extreme dejection of your entire bearing. I confess, unkind as it may sound, they moved me to laughter. Ah! that reminds me," says Cecil, her expression changing to one of comical terror, as she starts to her feet, "Plantagenet came up at the moment, and lest he should see my composition I hid it within the leaves of the blotting-book. There it is still, no doubt. What shall I do if any one finds it in the morning? I shall be read out of meeting, as I have an indistinct idea that, with a view to making you laugh, I rather caricatured every one in the room, more or less."

"Shall I run down for it?" says Molly. "I won't be a moment, and you are quite undressed. In the blotting-book, you said? I shan't be any time."

"Unless the ghosts detain you."

"Or, what would be much worse, any of our friends."



CHAPTER XXVI.

"A single stream of all her soft brown hair Poured on one side.

* * *

Half light, half shade, She stood, a sight to make an old man young."

—Gardener's Daughter.

Thrusting her little bare feet into her slippers, she takes up a candle and walks softly down the stairs, past the smoking and billiard-rooms, into the drawing-room, where the paper has been left.

All the lamps have been extinguished, leaving the apartment, which is immense, steeped in darkness. Coming into it from the brilliantly-lighted hall outside, with only a candle in her hand, the gloom seems even greater, and overcomes her sight to such a degree that she has traversed at least one-half its length before she discovers she is not its only occupant.

Seated before a writing-table, with his hand, indeed, upon the very blotting-book she seeks, and with only another candle similar to hers to lend him light, sits Luttrell.

As her eyes meet his she starts, colors violently, and is for the moment utterly abashed.

Involuntarily she glances down at the soft blue dressing-gown she wears, over which her hair—brushed and arranged for the night—falls in soft, rippling, gold-brown masses, and from thence to the little naked feet that peep out shamelessly from their blue slippers.

The crimson blood rises to her face. Covered with a painful though pretty confusion, she stands quite still, and lets her tell-tale eyes seek the ground.

Luttrell has risen, and, without any particular design, has advanced toward her. Perhaps the force of habit compels him to do so; perhaps intense and not altogether welcome surprise. For the future to see her is but to add one more pang to his intolerable regret.

"I was writing to you," he says, indicating with a slight movement of the hand the chair on which he has been sitting, and thus breaking the awful silence which threatens to last until next day, so mute has Molly grown. With a delicate sense of chivalry he endeavors to appear oblivious of her rather scanty and disconcerting—however becoming—costume. "But as it is, perhaps I may as well say to you what is on my mind,—if you will permit me."

"I cannot forbid your speech." Coldly.

"I will not keep you long. But"—with a slight, almost imperceptible, glance at her dressing-gown—"perhaps you are in a hurry?"

"I am—rather." At this juncture, had they been friends, Molly would undoubtedly have laughed. As it is, she is profoundly serious. "Still, if it is anything important, I will hear you."

"Can I do anything for you?" asks he, hesitating, evidently fearing to approach the desired subject.

"Nothing, thank you. I came only for a paper,—left in the blotting-book. If you wish to speak, do so quickly, as I must go." Then, as he still hesitates, "Why do you pause?"

"Because I fear incurring your displeasure once again; and surely the passages between us have been bad enough already."

"Do not fear." Coldly. "It is no longer in your power to wound me."

"True. I should not have allowed that fact to escape me. Yet hear me. It is my love urges me on."

"Your—love!" With slow and scornful disbelief.

"Yes,—mine. In spite of all that has come and gone, you know me well enough to understand how dear you still are to me. No, you need not say a word. I can see by your face that you will never pardon. There is no greater curse than to love a woman who gives one but bare tolerance in return."

"Why did you not think of all this while there was yet time?"

"One drifts—until it is too late to seek for remedies. My heaviest misfortune lies in the fact that I cannot root you from my heart."

"A terrible misfortune, no doubt,"—with a little angry flash from her azure eyes,—"but one that time will cure."

"Will it?" Wistfully. "Shall I indeed learn to forget you, Molly,—to look back upon my brief but happy past as an idle dream? I hardly hope so much."

"And would you waste all your best days," asks she, in tones that tremble ever so little, "in thinking of me? Remember all you said,—all you meant,—how 'thankful you were to find me out in time.'"

"And will you condemn forever because of a few words spoken in a moment of despair and terrible disappointment?" pleads he. "I acknowledge my fault. I was wrong; I was too hasty. I behaved like a brute, if you will; but then I believed I had grounds for fear. When once I saw your face, heard your voice, looked into your eyes, I knew how false my accusations were; but it was then too late."

"Too late, indeed."

"How calmly you can say it!" with exquisite reproach. "Have five minutes blotted out five months? Did you know all the anguish I endured on seeing you with—Shadwell—I think you might forgive."

"I might. But I could not forget. Would I again consent to be at the mercy of one who without a question pronounced me guilty? A thousand times no!"

"Say at once you are glad to be rid of me," breaks he in bitterly, stung by her persistent coldness.

"You are forgetting your original purpose," she says, after a slight pause, declining to notice his last remark. "Was there not something you wished to say to me?"

"Yes." Rousing himself with an impatient sigh. "Molly," blanching a little, and trying to read her face, with all his heart in his eyes,—"are you going to marry Shadwell?"

Molly colors richly (a rare thing with her), grows pale again, clasps and unclasps her slender fingers nervously, before she makes reply. A prompting toward mischief grows within her, together with a sense of anger that he should dare put such a question to her under existing circumstances.

"I cannot see by what right you put to me such a question—now," she says, at length, haughtily. "My affairs can no longer concern you." With an offended gleam at him from under her long lashes.

"But they do," cries he, hotly, maddened by her blush, which he has attributed jealously to a wrong cause. "How can I see you throwing yourself away upon a roue—a blackleg—without uttering a word of warning?"

"'A roue—a blackleg'? Those are strong terms. What has Captain Shadwell done to deserve them? A blackleg! How?"

"Perhaps I go too far when I say that," says Luttrell, wishing with all his heart he knew something vile of Shadwell; "but he has gone as near it as any man well can. You and he cannot have a thought in common. Will you sacrifice your entire life without considering well the consequences?"

"He is a gentleman, at all events," says Miss Massereene, slowly, cuttingly. "He never backbites his friends. He is courteous in his manner; and—he knows how to keep—his temper. I do not believe any of your insinuations."

"You defend him?" cries Luttrell, vehemently. "Does that mean that you already love him? It is impossible! In a few short weeks to forget all the vows we interchanged, all the good days we spent at Brooklyn, before we ever came to this accursed place! There at least you liked me well enough,—you were willing to trust to me your life's happiness; here!—And now you almost tell me you love this man, who is utterly unworthy of you. Speak. Say it is not so."

"I shall tell you nothing. You have no right to ask me. What is there to prevent my marrying whom I choose? Have you so soon forgotten that last night you—jilted me?" She speaks bitterly, and turns from him with an unlovely laugh.

"Molly," cries the young man, in low tones, full of passion, catching her hand, all the violent emotion he has been so painfully striving to suppress since her entrance breaking loose now, "listen to me for one moment. Do not kill me. My whole heart is bound up in you. You are too young to be so cruel. Darling, I was mad when I deemed I could live without you. I have been mad ever since that fatal hour last night. Will you forgive me? Will you?"

"Let my hand go, Mr. Luttrell," says the girl, with a dry sob. Is it anger, or grief, or pride? "You had me once, and you would not keep me. You shall never again have the chance of throwing me over: be assured of that."

She draws her fingers from his burning clasp, and once more turns away, with her eyes bent carefully upon the carpet, lest he shall notice the tears that threaten to overflow them. She walks resolutely but slowly past where he is standing, with folded arms, leaning against the wall, toward the door.

Just as her fingers close on the handle she becomes aware of footsteps on the outside coming leisurely toward her.

Instinctively she shrinks backward, casts a hasty, horrified glance at her dressing-gown, her bare feet, her loosened hair; then, with a movement full of confidence, mingled with fear, she hastens back to Luttrell (who, too, has heard the disconcerting sound) and glances up at him appealingly.

"There is somebody coming," she breathes, in a terrified whisper.

The footsteps come nearer,—nearer still; they reach the very threshold, and then pause. Will their owner come in?

In the fear and agony and doubt of the moment, Molly lays her two white hands upon her bosom and stands listening intently, with wide-open gleaming eyes, too frightened to move or make any attempt at concealment; while Luttrell, although alarmed for her, cannot withdraw his gaze from her lovely face.

Somebody's hand steals along the door as though searching for the handle. With renewed hope Luttrell instantly blows out both the candles near him, reducing the room to utter darkness, and draws Molly behind the window-curtains.

There is a breathless pause. The door opens slowly,—slowly. With a gasp that can almost be heard, Molly puts out one hand in the darkness and lays it heavily upon Luttrell's arm. His fingers close over it.

"Hush! not a word," whispers he.

"Oh, I am so frightened!" returns she.

His heart has begun to beat madly. To feel her so close to him, although only through unwished-for accident, is dangerously sweet. By a supreme effort he keeps himself from taking her in his arms and giving her one last embrace; but honor, the hour, the situation, all alike forbid. So he only tightens his clasp upon her hand and smothers a sigh between his lips.

Whoever the intruder may be, he, she, or it, is without light; no truth-compelling ray illumines the gloom; and presently, after a slight hesitation, the door is closed again, and the footsteps go lightly, cautiously away through the hall, leaving them once more alone in the long, dark, ghostly drawing-room.

Molly draws her hand hurriedly away, and moving quietly from Luttrell's side, breathes a sigh, half relief, half embarrassment; while he, groping his way to the writing-table, finds a match, and, striking it, throws light upon the scene again.

At the same moment Molly emerges from the curtains, with a heightened color, and eyes, sweet but shamed, that positively refuse to meet his.

"I suppose I can trust you—to—say nothing of all this?" she murmurs, unsteadily.

"I suppose you can." Haughtily.

His heart is still throbbing passionately; almost, he fears, each separate beat can be heard in the oppressive stillness.

"Good-night," says Molly, slowly.

"Good-night."

Shyly, and still without meeting his gaze, she holds out her hand. He takes it softly, reverently, and, emboldened by the gentleness of her expression, says impulsively:

"Answer me a last question, darling,—answer me—Are you going to marry Philip?"

And she answers, also impulsively:

"No."

His face changes; hope once more shines within his blue eyes. Involuntarily he draws up his tall, slight figure to its full height, with a glad gesture that bespeaks returning confidence; then he glances longingly first at Molly's downcast face, then at the small hand that lies trembling in his own.

"May I?" he asks, and, receiving no denial, stoops and kisses it warmly once, twice, thrice, with fervent devotion.

* * * * *

"My dear, how long you have been!" says Cecil, when at length Molly returns to her room. "I thought you were never coming. Where have you been?"

"In the drawing-room; and oh, Cecil! he was there. And he would keep me, asking me question after question."

"I dare say," says Cecil, looking her over. "That blue negligee is tremendously becoming. No doubt he has still a good many more questions he would like to put to you. And you call yourself a nice, decorous, well-behaved——"

"Don't be silly. You have yet to hear the 'decorous' and thrilling part of my tale. Just as we were in the middle of a most animated discussion, what do you think happened? Somebody actually came to the door and tried to open it. In an instant Tedcastle blew out both our candles and drew me behind the curtain."

"'"Curiouser and curiouser," said Alice.' I begin to think I'm in Wonderland. Go on. The plot thickens; the impropriety deepens. It grows more interesting at every word."

"The 'somebody,' whoever it was, opened the door, looked in,—fortunately without a light, or we might have been discovered,—and——"

"You fainted, of course?" says Cecil, who is consumed with laughter.

"No, indeed," answers Molly; "I neither fainted nor screamed."

"Tut! nonsense. I think nothing of you. Such a golden opportunity thrown away! In your place I should have been senseless in half a minute in Tedcastle's arms."

"Forgive my stupidity. I only turned and caught hold of Teddy's arm, and held him as though I never meant to let him go."

"Perhaps that was your secret wish, were the truth known. Molly, you are wiser than I am. What is a paltry fainting fit to the touch of a soft, warm hand? Go on."

"Well, the invader, when he had gazed into space, withdrew again, leaving us to our own devices. Cecil, if we had been discovered! I in my dressing-gown! Not all the waters of the Atlantic would have saved me from censure. I never was so terrified. Who could it have been?"

"'Oh! 'twas I, love; Wandering by, love,'"

declares Cecil, going off into a perfect peal of laughter. "Never, never have I been so entertained! And so I frightened you? Well, be comforted. I was terrified in my turn by your long absence; so much so that, without a candle, I crept down-stairs, stole along the hall, and looked into the drawing-room. Seeing no one, I retreated, and gained my own room again as fast as I could. Oh, how sorry I am I did not know! Consider your feelings had I stolen quietly toward your hiding-place step by step! A splendid situation absolutely thrown away."

"You and Mr. Potts ought to be brother and sister, you both revel so in the bare idea of mischief," says Molly, laughing too.

And then Cecil, declaring it is all hours, turns her out of her room, and presently sleep falls and settles upon Herst and all its inmates.



CHAPTER XXVII.

"Death is here, and death is there; Death is busy everywhere; All around, within, beneath, Above is death,—and we are death.

* * *

Fresh spring, and summer, and winter hoar, Move my faint heart with grief, but with delight No more, O never more."

—Shelley.

It is just two o'clock, and Sunday. They have all been to church. They have struggled manfully through their prayers. They have chanted a depressing psalm or two to the most tuneless of ancient ditties. They have even sat out an incomprehensible sermon with polite gravity and many a weary yawn.

The day is dull. So is the rector. So is the curate,—unutterably so.

Service over, they file out again into the open air in solemn silence, though at heart glad as children who break school, and wend their way back to Herst through the dismantled wood.

The trees are nearly naked: a short, sad, consumptive wind is soughing through them. The grass—what remains of it—is brown, of an unpleasant hue. No flowers smile up at them as they pass quietly along. The sky is leaden. There is a general air of despondency over everything. It is a day laid aside for dismal reflection; a day on which hateful "might have beens" crop up, for "melancholy has marked it for its own."

Yet just as they come to a turn in the park, two magpies (harbingers of good when coupled; messengers of evil when apart) fly past them directly across their path.

"'Two for joy!'" cries Molly, gayly, glad of any interruption to her depressing thoughts. "I saw them first. The luck is mine."

"I think I saw them first," says Sir Penthony, with no object beyond a laudable desire to promote argument.

"Now, how could you?" says Molly. "I am quite twenty yards ahead of you, and must have seen them come round this corner first. Now, what shall I get, I wonder? Something worth getting, I do hope."

"'Blessed are they that expect nothing, for they shall not be disappointed,'" says Mr. Potts, moodily, who is as gloomy as the day. "I expect nothing."

"You are jealous," retorts Molly. "Sour grapes,"—making a small moue at him. "But you have no claim upon this luck; it is all my own. Let nobody for a moment look upon it as his or hers."

"You are welcome to it. I don't envy you," says Cecil, little thinking how prophetic are her words.

They continue their walk and their interrupted thoughts,—the latter leading them in all sorts of contrary directions,—some to love, some to hate, some to cold game-pie and dry champagne.

As they enter the hall at Herst, one of the footmen steps forward and hands Molly an ugly yellow envelope.

"Why, here is my luck, perhaps!" cries she, gayly. "How soon it has come! Now, what can be in it? Let us all guess."

She is surprised, and her cheeks have flushed a little. Her face is full of laughter. Her sweet eyes wander from one to another, asking them to join in her amusement. No thought, no faintest suspicion of the awful truth occurs to her, although only a thin piece of paper conceals it from her view.

"A large fortune, perhaps," says Sir Penthony; while the others close round her, laughing, too. Only Luttrell stands apart, calmly indifferent.

"Or a proposal. That would just suit the rapid times in which we live."

"I think I would at once accept a man who proposed to me by telegraph," says Molly, with pretty affectation. "It would show such flattering haste,—such a desire for a kind reply. Remember,"—with her finger under the lap of the envelope,—"if the last surmise proves correct I have almost said yes."

She breaks open the paper, and, smiling still, daintily unfolds the enclosure.

What a few words!—two or three strokes of the pen. Yet what a change they make in the beautiful, debonnaire countenance! Black as ink they stand out beneath her stricken eyes. Oh, cruel hand that penned them so abruptly!

"Come home at once. Make no delay. Your brother is dead."

Gray as death grows her face; her body turns to stone. So altered is she in this brief space, that when she raises her head some shrink away from her, and some cry out.

"Oh, Molly! what is it?" asks Lady Stafford, panic-stricken, seizing her by the arm; while Luttrell, scarcely less white than the girl herself, comes unconsciously forward.

Molly's arms fall to her sides; the telegram flutters to the floor.

"My brother is dead," she says, in a slow, unmeaning tone.

"He is dead," she says again, in a rather higher, shriller voice, receiving no response from the awed group that surrounds her. Their silence evidently puzzles her. Her large eyes wander helplessly over all their faces, until at length they fall on Luttrell's. Here they rest, knowing she has found one that loves her.

"Teddy—Teddy!" she cries, in an agonized tone of desolation; then, throwing up her arms wildly toward heaven, as though imploring pity, she falls forward senseless into his outstretched arms.

* * * * *

All through the night Cecil Stafford stays with her, soothing and caressing her as best she can. But all her soothing and caressing falls on barren soil.

Up and down the room throughout the weary hours walks Molly, praying, longing for the daylight; asking impatiently every now and then if it "will never come." Surely on earth there is no greater cross to bear than the passive one of waiting when distress and love call loudly for assistance.

Her eyes are dry and tearless; her whole body burns like fire with a dull and throbbing heat. She is composed but restless.

"Will it soon be day?" she asks Cecil, almost every half hour, with a fierce impatience,—her entire being full of but one idea, which is to reach her home as soon as possible.

And again:

"If I had not fainted I might have been there now. Why did I miss that train? Why did you let me faint?"

In vain Cecil strives to comfort; no thought comes to her but a mad craving for the busy day.

At last it comes, slowly, sweetly. The gray dawn deepens into rose, the sun flings abroad its young and chilly beams upon the earth. It is the opening of a glorious morn. How often have we noticed in our hours of direst grief how it is then Nature chooses to deck herself in all her fairest and best, as though to mock us with the very gayety and splendor of her charms!

At half-past seven an early train is starting. Long before that time she is dressed, with her hat and jacket on, fearful lest by any delay she should miss it; and when at length the carriage is brought round to the door she runs swiftly down the stairs to meet it.

In the hall below, awaiting her, stands Luttrell, ready to accompany her.

"Are you going, too?" Cecil asks, in a whisper, only half surprised.

"Yes, of course. I will take her myself to Brooklyn."

"I might have known you would," Cecil says, kindly, and then she kisses Molly, who hardly returns the caress, and puts her into the carriage, and, pressing Luttrell's hand warmly, watches them until they are driven out of her sight.

During all the long drive not one word does Molly utter. Neither does Luttrell, whose heart is bleeding for her. She takes no notice of him, expresses no surprise at his being with her.

At the station he takes her ticket, through bribery obtains an empty carriage, and, placing a rug round her, seats himself at the farthest end of the compartment from her,—so little does he seek to intrude upon her grief. And yet she takes no heed of him. He might, indeed, be absent, or the veriest stranger, so little does his presence seem to affect her. Leaning rather forward, with her hands clasped upon her knees, she scarcely stirs or raises her head throughout the journey, except to go from carriage to train, from train back again to carriage.

Once, during their last short drive from the station to Brooklyn, moved by compassion, he ventures to address her.

"I wish you could cry, my poor darling," he says, tenderly, taking her hand and fondling it between his own.

"Tears could not help me," she answers. And then, as though aroused by his voice, she says, uneasily, "Why are you here?"

"Because I am his friend and—yours," he returns, gently, making allowance for her small show of irritation.

"True," she says, and no more. Five minutes afterward they reach Brooklyn.

The door stands wide open. All the world could have entered unrebuked into that silent hall. What need now for bars and bolts? When the Great Thief has entered in and stolen from them their best, what heart have they to guard against lesser thefts?

Luttrell follows Molly into the house, his face no whit less white than her own. A great pain is tugging at him,—a pain that is almost an agony. For what greater suffering is there than to watch with unavailing sympathy the anguish of those we love?

He touches her lightly on the arm to rouse her, for she has stood stock-still in the very middle of the hall,—whether through awful fear, or grief, or sudden bitter memory, her heart knoweth.

"Molly," says her lover, "let me go with you."

"You still here?" she says, awaking from her thoughts, with a shiver. "I thought you gone. Why do you stay? I only ask to be alone."

"I shall go in a few minutes," he pleads, "when I have seen you safe with Mrs. Massereene. I am afraid for you. Suppose you should—suppose—you do not even know—the room," he winds up, desperately. "Let me guard you against such an awful surprise as that."

"I do," she answers, pointing, with a shudder, to one room farther on that branches off the hall. "It—is there. Leave me; I shall be better by myself."

"I shall see you to-morrow?" he says, diffidently.

"No; I shall see no one to-morrow."

"Nevertheless, I shall call to know how you are," he says, persistently, and kissing one of her limp little hands, departs.

Outside on the gravel he meets the old man who for years has had care of the garden and general out-door work at Brooklyn.

"It is a terrible thing, sir," this ancient individual says, touching his hat to Luttrell, who had been rather a favorite with him during his stay last summer. He speaks without being addressed, feeling as though the sad catastrophe that has occurred has leveled some of the etiquette existing between master and man.

"Terrible indeed." And then, in a low tone, "How did it happen?"

"'Twas just this," says the old man, who is faithful, and has understood for many years most of John Massereene's affairs, having lived with him from boy to man; "'twas money that did it. He had invested all he had, as it might be, and he lost it, and the shock went to his heart and killed him. Poor soul! poor soul!"

"Disease of the heart. Who would have suspected it? And he has lost all. Surely something remains?"

"Only a few hundreds, sir, as I hear,—nothing to signify,—for the poor mistress and the wee bits. It is a fearful thing, sir, and bad to think of. And there's Miss Molly, too. I never could abide them spickilations, as they're called."

"Poor John Massereene!" says Luttrell, taking off his hat. "He meant no harm to any one,—least of all to those who were nearest to his kindly heart."

"Ay, ay, man and boy I knew him. He was always kind and true, was the master,—with no two ways about him. When the letter came as told him all was gone, and that only beggary was before him, he said nothing, only went away to his study dazed like, an' read it, an' read it, and then fell down heart-broken upon the floor. Dead he was—stone dead—afore any of us came to him. The poor missis it was as found him first."

"It is too horrible," says Luttrell, shuddering. He nods his head to the old man and walks away from him down to the village inn, depressed and saddened.

The gardener's news has been worse than even he anticipated. To be bereft of their dearest is bad enough, but to be thrown penniless on the mercies of the cold and cruel—nay, rather thoughtless—world is surely an aggravation of their misery. Death at all times is a calamity; but when it leaves the mourners without actual means of support, how much sadder a thing it is! To know one's comforts shall remain unimpaired after the loss of one's beloved is—in spite of all indignant denial—a solace to the most mournful.



CHAPTER XXVIII.

"As the earth when leaves are dead, As the night when sleep is sped, As the heart when joy is fled, I am left lone—alone."

—Shelley.

Meantime, Molly, having listened vaguely and without interest, yet with a curious intentness, to his parting footfalls, as the last one dies away draws herself up and, with a sigh or two, moves instinctively toward the door she had pointed out to Luttrell.

No one has told her, no hint has reached her ears. It is not his usual bedroom, yet she knows that within that door lies all that remains to her of the brother so fondly loved.

With slow and lagging steps, with bent head and averted eyes, she creeps tardily near, resting with her hand upon the lock to summon courage to meet what must be before her. She feels faint,—sick with a bodily sickness,—for never yet has she come face to face with Death.

At last, bringing her teeth firmly together, and closing her eyes, by an immense effort she compels herself to turn the handle of the door, and enters.

Letitia is seated upon the floor beside the bed, her head lowered, her hands folded tightly in her lap. There is no appearance of mourning so far as garments are concerned. Of course, considering the shortness of the time, it would be impossible: yet it seems odd, out of keeping, that she should still be wearing that soft blue serge, which is associated with so many happy hours.

She is not weeping: there are no traces, however faint, of tears. Her cheeks look a little thinner, more haggard, and she has lost the delicate girlish color that was her chief charm; but her eyes, though black circles surround them,—so black as to suggest the appliance of art,—have an unnatural brilliancy that utterly precludes the possibility of crying.

Some one has pulled a piece of the blind to one side, and a fitful gleam of sunlight, that dances in a heartless manner, flickers in and out of the room, nay, even strays in its ghastly mirth across the bed where the poor body lies.

As Molly walks, or rather drags her limbs after her, into the chamber (so deadly is the terror that has seized upon her), Letitia slowly raises her eyes.

She evinces no surprise at her sister's home-coming.

"There is all that is left you," she says, in a hard, slow voice, that makes Molly shiver, turning her head in the direction of the bed, and opening and shutting her hands with a peculiarly expressive, empty gesture. Afterward she goes back to her original position, her face bent downward, her body swaying gently to and fro.

Reluctantly, with trembling steps and hidden eyes, Molly forces herself to approach the dreaded spot. For the first time she is about to look on our undying foe,—to make acquaintance with the last great change of all.

A cold hand has closed upon her heart; she is consumed by an awesome, unconquerable shrinking. She feels a difficulty in breathing; almost she thinks her senses are about to desert her.

As she reaches the side of the bed opposite to where Letitia crouches, she compels herself to look, and for the moment sustains a passionate feeling of relief, as the white sheet that covers all alone meets her gaze.

And yet not all. A second later, and a dread more awful than the first overpowers her, for there, beneath the fair, pure linen shroud, the features are clearly marked, the form can be traced; she can assure herself of the shape of the head,—the nose,—the hands folded so quietly, so obediently, in their last eternal sleep upon the cold breast. But no faintest breathing stirs them. He is dead!

Her eyes grow to this fearful thing. To steady herself she lays her hand upon the back of a chair. Not for all the world contains would she lean upon that bed, lest by any chance she should disturb the quiet sleeper. The other hand she puts out in trembling silence to raise a corner of the sheet.

"I cannot," she groans aloud, withdrawing her fingers shudderingly. But no one heeds. Three times she essays to throw back the covering, to gaze upon her dead, and fails; and then at last the deed is accomplished, and Death in all its silent majesty lies smiling before her.

Is it John? Yes, it is, of course. And yet—is it? Oh, the changeless sweetness of the smile,—the terrible shading,—the moveless serenity!

Spell-bound, heart-broken, she gazes at him for a minute, and then hastily, though with the tenderest reverence, she hides away his face. A heavy, bursting sigh escapes her; she raises her head, and becomes conscious that Letitia is upon her knees and is staring at her fixedly across the bed.

There is about her an expression that is almost wild in its surprise and horror.

"You do not cry either," says she, in a clear, intense whisper. "I thought I was the only thing on earth so unnatural. I have not wept. I have not lost my senses. I can still think. I have lost my all,—my husband,—John!—and yet I have not shed one single tear. And you, Molly,—he loved you so dearly, and I fancied you loved him too,—and still you are as cold, as poor a creature as myself."

There is no reply. Molly is regarding her speechlessly. In truth, she is dumb from sheer misery and the remembrance of what she has just seen. Are Letitia's words true? Is she heartless?

There is a long silence,—how long neither of them ever knows,—and then something happens that achieves what all the despair and sorrow have failed in doing. In the house, through it, awakening all the silence, rings a peal of childish laughter. It echoes; it trembles along the corridor outside; it seems to shake the very walls of the death-chamber.

Both the women start violently. Molly, raising her hands to her head, falls back against the wall nearest to her, unutterable horror in her face. Letitia, with a quick, sharp cry, springs to her feet, and then, running to Molly, flings her arms around her.

"Molly, Molly," she exclaims, wildly, "am I going mad? That cannot—it cannot be his child."

Then they cling to each other in silent agony, until at length some cruel band around their hearts gives way, and the sorrowful, healing, blessed tears spring forth.

* * * * *

The last sad scene is over; the curtain has fallen. The final separation has taken place. Their dead has been buried out of their sight.

The room in which he lay has been thrown open, the blinds raised, the windows lifted. Through them the sweet, fresh wind comes rushing in. The heartless sun—now grown cold and wintry—has sent some of its rays to peer curiously where so lately the body lay.

The children are growing more demonstrative. More frequently, and with less fear of reproof, the sound of their mirth is heard throughout the silent house. Only this very morning the boy Lovat—the eldest born, his father's idol—went whistling through the hall. No doubt it was in a moment of forgetfulness he did it; no doubt the poor lad checked himself an instant later, with a bitter pang of self-reproach; but his mother heard him, and the sound smote her to the heart.

Mr. Buscarlet (who is a kind little man, in spite of his "ways and his manners" and a few eccentricities of speech), at a word from Molly comes to Brooklyn, and, having carefully examined letters, papers, and affairs generally, turns their fears into unhappy certainty. One thousand pounds is all that remains to them on which to live or starve.

The announcement of their ruin is hardly news to Letitia. She has been prepared for it. The letter found crushed in her dead husband's hand, although suppressing half the truth, did not deceive her. Even at that awful moment she quite realized her position. Not so Molly. With all the unreasoning trust of youth she hoped against hope until it was no longer possible to do so, trying to believe that something forgotten would come to light, some unremembered sum, to relieve them from absolute want. But Mr. Buscarlet's search has proved ineffective.